After John Legend had a very scary meeting with his doctor, he decided to make some healthy lifestyle changes to ensure that he’ll be around to see his kids grow up. The 40-year-old singer started by changing up his diet to eat more salad for “breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

“My doctor told me that I needed more antioxidants in my diet because I had hereditary cholesterol issues, and he told me that adding vegetables was a good way to address it,” he told People. “So I started having something green with every meal.”

View this post on Instagram

I haven't eaten here yet but I assume it's delicious

A post shared by John Legend (@johnlegend) on

John saw his doctor’s visit as a “wake-up call” for him to start eating healthier and ever since then he has been adding “a little vinaigrette” to his breakfast greens and “not much else.”

“A lot of people, their behavior affects what they do, but also their heredity is involved in people being more prone to certain conditions,” he explained. “We have a history of heart and cholesterol issues in my family, so it makes more sense that I have to be more vigilant. So whenever you can learn that early in your life and do things behaviorally to combat that, I think it’s a good thing.”

Wife Chrissy Teigen, a foodie herself, was a little weirded out by her husband having salad for breakfast in the beginning but, as he notes, she quickly got used to it. “The shock has worn off, but when I started doing it she was like, ‘What are you doing?’” John added.

John has also been taking swimming lessons at home so that he could spend more time with his kids. “I was never afraid to go in the pool, but I was afraid to go in the deep end,” he dished to People in a separate interview. “I’m happy that I’m able to live with less fear and be able to swim with my kids. It just opens up a lot more opportunities. I just want to be comfortable in any water settings. So if we’re out on a boat on the ocean, if we’re in a pool, no matter where we are.”